Chapter Thirteen Nomi #2
More than anything, though, Aunt Edna’s always been a stone-cold weirdo, and while she embarrassed the hell out of me growing up, I’ve always loved her, too.
Grudgingly, yes, but she feels like home in a way no one else does.
She’s in her eighties now, and after a few rough years, she recently decided to forgo treatment for the leukemia storming her system.
I can respect that decision, but I can’t quite look it in the face, either.
I know her end is near, but part of me has been desperate to preserve the monolith of Aunt Edna that’s always been such a strong, supportive constant in my life.
Seeing her so frail now punches me in the chest, just like I knew it would.
“Get in here, Julie!” Aunt Edna rasps out, then makes grabby hands at me.
I walk over, doing my best not to broadcast my emotions, and lean in, closing my eyes for a peck on the cheek.
So, when the Wawa bag is ripped from my hand instead, followed by the sound of Aunt Edna’s satisfied grunts as she removes box after greasy box and places them on her TV tray, I’m surprised and slightly miffed.
“Oh, good—you remembered the blue cheese dressing. Can you heat it up?”
Hot blue cheese dressing? My mouth contorts into a grimace. “Absolutely not!”
Aunt Edna cackles again. “Oh, my wittle Julie. Still such a fussbudget prissy pants.”
She wipes at her tearing eyes, which are a startling bloodshot red.
“Jesus, Aunt Edna—what’s wrong with your eyes?”
“I’m eighty-four years old. What’s right with them?
” She opens the box of loaded fries first, sniffs it appreciatively.
“God, I love Wawa ham chunks.” She picks one off the cheesy pile and throws it to BonBon Jovi, the ridiculous shih tzu fluff ball nestled between Aunt Edna’s knees. “Best chunks in town.”
The tiny, ninety-pound woman proceeds to destroy that box of fries. She eats with the gusto of a starved person, or a fourteen-year-old boy. My brow pinches as she makes actual carnivorous noises.
“What’s going on here?” I whisper to Mom, who’s smiling fondly as Aunt Edna tears into the cheeseburger with barbecue sauce next.
Even after three years in the ER, I have to look away.
“This is the first time she’s had an appetite all week.” Mom holds up a paper shopping bag stamped with Stranger Drugs. “Thanks to Nomi.”
“Aunt Edna’s high?!”
“If it’s good enough for Martha Stewart, it’s good enough for me,” Aunt Edna says between gruesome bites.
“Come sit with me, Julie. I’m gonna die soon, and you’ll wish you had.
” She says this with zero fear or concern, like she’s just remarked on the forecast or someone’s unfortunate haircut.
She slices an entire quarter off the burger and gives it to BonBon, who eats it one vicious gulp, then promptly farts.
“God bless you,” Aunt Edna says.
Mom and I pull up chairs and TV trays to her bedside, close enough to hear each other, but far enough to avoid the barbecue splash zone.
Though now I have no appetite, I pull out my garden salad with grilled chicken.
It… looks normal? I check for pubic hair—judging by the Wawa man’s knuckles, that man must shed like a dog—but find none.
Tentatively, I arrange the napkin across my lap, then pour an exact measure of oil and vinegar across the greens.
Aunt Edna watches me, her face incredulous, as I sprinkle the tiniest amount of salt and black pepper last. “Oh, Julie. Your butthole must be so tight—”
“Edna!” Mom spews out, laughing. Laughing so hard, it’s rather suspicious, now that I think about it. “Can we not discuss my judgmental son’s butthole at dinnertime?”
My lips thin into a severe line. “Are you high, too, Mother?”
This makes them laugh even harder, but now my heart’s hammering in my ears.
I feel—betrayed, yes, betrayed—by Mom smoking pot.
She lived in the same house I did, watching Dad waste away in the garage.
Our power getting cut off in the winter when all our money went toward his weed and prescriptions until Mom called Aunt Edna or Uncle Rocco for help.
How can she smoke it now, knowing what it did to Dad? What it did to us?
I exhale through my nose and cut my chicken into neat, even squares.
“Listen, Julie, I have wisdom to impart.” Aunt Edna wipes her mouth daintily on one of Wawa’s brown napkins. “Are you listening?”
“Is it about my butthole?” I arch an eyebrow.
Aunt Edna lifts her finger. “You must learn to loosen it.”
Mom clutches her stomach and emits one long, high-pitched squeal.
“Okay, that’s it.” I throw my napkin down on my salad. It’s probably covered in norovirus anyway. “I’m done.”
“Your whole life, you’re too uptight. Your entire existence is one long Kegel,” Aunt Edna continues with no regard to how Mom is struggling to breathe.
“One day, you’re gonna be old, and you’ll look back and ask yourself, why did I live my life with this tight butthole?
” She presses her hand to her chest, looking philosophically into the distance. “Where did this tight butthole get me?”
“I don’t have to take this.” I shove the TV tray back into the little stand meant to hold it, surely the most unironically American piece of furniture that’s ever existed, and brush nonexistent crumbs off my pants. “Thank you and goodnight.”
“You sit that tight butthole down, young man!” Mom wheezes.
“Sit, sit, I’ll be serious.” Aunt Edna throws her hands in the air.
I groan. “No, you won’t.”
Aunt Edna eyes me sternly, and I sink into my seat.
“I know it’s hard, but you need to hear this, Julie. So much of what upsets us exists only up here.” She points a finger to her temple. “How much of what’s bothering you is your own making? How much of it exists only in your head?”
“How do you know I’m upset?”
Aunt Edna tuts. “The whole town knows.”
“Dr. Appa called me.” Mom folds her arms. “Told me everything.”
I frown. Since when do they talk on the phone?
I lean my head into my hands. “Then you know these problems aren’t just in my head.
Dr. Srinivasan won’t let me work unless I convince Nomi to teach me about cannabis.
And if I don’t—if I stand on my ethics or worse, beg Nomi for forgiveness and she laughs in my face—Dr. Appa will fire me, Philly Gen won’t take me back, and everything I’ve worked for will be gone, just like that.
All the prestige, awards, certifications, and research.
The years I’ve spent sacrificing everything else to become the best won’t mean a damn thing. All because of weed!”
I moan softly at the floor.
“Okay, here’s what you do: go do a big workout, really get your muscles pumped, then shower but don’t shave—leave some stubble.
Show up to Nomi’s dispensary wearing extremely short shorts, I’m talking Tom Selleck, I’m talking Magnum, P.I.
, we’re working for the female gaze here.
If you don’t have any, I still have some of your Uncle Joseph’s nut-huggers in the back closet. ”
“No,” I whisper futilely. “No!”
“Wear a button-down with the sleeves rolled up to your forearms, linen if possible. Bring flowers, good ones. Beg. Get on your knees if you have to—”
“Women love a good grovel.” Mom takes a big swig of Arctic Splash. “And short shorts.”
“Yes, we do,” Aunt Edna nods. “Tell Nomi you’re sorry for being such a know-it-all jerk—”
“—hey—” I look up, glaring.
“—and swallow that big ego of yours and actually learn about what you’re trying to ruin for everybody.” Aunt Edna wags a fry at me. “If I didn’t take edibles, I’d have died years ago. Do you know what chemo does to your ability to eat?”
“Of course I do—”
“No,” Aunt Edna interrupts. “You know about it in theory. If you really knew, if you really understood just how terrible it is when your own body’s determined to starve you, you’d see cannabis for the miracle it is, for me especially.
” Aunt Edna blinks sleepily, then lies back in her bed, as if this lecture has cost her significant energy she’s now used up.
“Now come here and give us a kiss. I’m about to pass out. ”
I stand up, leaning over the tiny twig of a woman who’s always loomed so large in my life, and kiss her soft, crinkled cheek. She lifts a hand to gently grasp my chin. “Remember, Julian. Very short shorts. Three inches or bust. In fact, they should look like they’re about to bust.”
“Yes, Aunt Edna,” I mumble, though the thought of groveling for Nomi’s forgiveness in slutty little shorts is unbearable.
My jaw clenches with the same rush of frustration that’s washed over me all day.
I don’t want to withdraw the complaint. I don’t want to learn about marijuana.
And I certainly, most ardently, do not want to apologize to Nomi Wyeth.
Aunt Edna pulls me by the collar until I lean over again, then whispers in my ear, “Remember, Julie. Loosen that butthole.”
I’ll do no such thing.
After Mom and I clean up, we return to Aunt Edna’s light snoring, BonBon curled up against her side.
Mom gestures for me to follow her to the screened-in porch.
Ugh. The talk. She takes a seat on the swinging bench, and after a second, I sit beside her.
The bench’s chains creak lightly as we swing, loud in the quiet between us.
“We need to talk, Julie.”
“You’re high. It can wait until you’re not.” The words are clipped and hard, but she’s not the only one who’s angry here.
“Actually, it can’t, because your stubborn, pigheaded behavior has landed you and other people I care about in real trouble. Dr. Appa has given you a very reasonable ultimatum that you have yet to agree to. What’s going on in your head?”
I blink, turning to face her. “Dad’s going on, Mom, Dad. Or did you forget about the stoner who lived in our garage?”
Mom lifts her chin. “I miss that stoner every single day. I loved him with my whole heart and part of me always will, and you better never, ever suggest otherwise again.” Her voice is soft and hurt, but strong. Always so strong. She’s always had to be.
“How could you do the same drugs he did, Mom?” My voice comes out strained.
Mom smiles sadly. “Oh, Julie. You’re pinning the tail on the wrong donkey.”
My brow creases. “What?”
“If your father only smoked pot, he’d still be here today. It was when he tried to get ‘legit’ by using prescription medication that everything went to hell. It was the oxycodone, Julian. The opioids. How do you not see that?”
“Of course I see that! But he’d been languishing in our garage for years at that point, Mom. He was constantly stoned. Marijuana came first.”
“No,” Mom says. “The accident came first. Then the wrenching pain. Everything after that was Anthony trying to stay in our lives the best way he knew how.”
“Well, it wasn’t good enough.”
“It was for me.”
“How can you say that?” I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. “He was always out there working on that model, getting stoned, while you worked two jobs.”
“Don’t you know why? He was trying, desperately, to regain his motor skills so he could find a new job and take care of us again.
Every house he painted, every little dog, every lamppost, he’d say, I’m getting better, Gisella.
Every day, I’m getting a little better. And he’d go out there the next day and work twice as hard. You have a lot of his determination.”
I blink, hard. That was why? My whole body shakes itself no, rejecting this statement and all it implies. “But he didn’t get better,” I insist. “He never made anything of himself again, and then he died and left us on our own.”
“And he deserved our love anyway,” Mom says. “He was there for us in the ways he knew how to be. You were so young, you may not remember, but he cooked every meal for us. After dinner, he’d sit with you at the table while you did your homework.”
“He never helped.”
Mom shrugs. “He didn’t need to. But if you did need him, he was there for you, Julian.”
“I didn’t want to need him,” I admit, remembering all those nights he sat beside me, asking me questions so I’d explain what I was learning to him.
I thought he was quizzing me at the time, which triggered my competitive need to be right.
But… maybe he was just making sure I didn’t need him, after all.
“I was so mad at him for—for not being more.”
“He knew that, too. And he might not have been the dad you wanted, but you were the son of his dreams.”
I sigh. “Because I was smart? Because I worked hard?”
“No,” Mom says simply. “Because you existed.”
The tears I don’t want to cry are streaming down my face, and Mom clucks her tongue, bringing me in close for a hug.
“Julie. It’s time to rewrite the story you tell yourself about your dad.
Cannabis helps people. Nomi helps people.
And your actions are hurting her and the people of this town.
” Mom runs her hand up and down my back, and it’s simultaneously the most comforting and devastating thing I’ve ever felt.
“I know you care about her, sweetie, and in your own way, you’re trying to protect her.
But it’s time to listen to her for a change, and if you want to show you care, let her tell you how.
You can’t substitute your judgment for hers, and moreover, you don’t deserve to. Do you understand that now?”
I suck in a deep, shaking breath, my chin still resting on my mother’s shoulder. “I-I guess so.”
“Good. Tomorrow morning, you’ll go over to her dispensary and show off all this new emotional growth.” Mom sits back and slaps my leg. “And your thighs. I’ll find some of Uncle Joseph’s nut-huggers.”
Christ.